


Asseveration

by WithCadence



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-08
Updated: 2014-05-08
Packaged: 2018-01-23 23:33:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1583453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WithCadence/pseuds/WithCadence
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean reunites with human Castiel for the first time. Something is off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Asseveration

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the majority of this fic between seasons 8 and 9, with no knowledge of any of the events of season 9 other than “Castiel becomes human” That is the context - that is how it should be read.

His mouth is dry. He opens and closes it, turns over and uses his leg to kick the sheets off of him. The room is not hot but heat radiates from the body next to him and his cool sweat adheres him to the sheets. After a few moments of lying completely still, willing his body to be tricked back into sleep through sheer immobility, Dean gets up.

He props himself up at first on his elbow and slowly – gingerly – pushes himself into a sitting position. The room is dark, faintly glowing blue. It is 5 AM. It is too early. Dean thinks for a moment of going back to sleep, but his eyes no longer feel heavy and an electricity has jumped from the cold floor into the soles of his feet. He stands, moves slowly towards the door, peers out at a dull sky. Hues of orange hide between the trunks of trees across the street. 

Dean slides his keycard off the table next to the door and rubs it on the rough pads of his fingertips. He exits, careful not to close the door too loudly behind him. Part way down the motel balcony is a coffee machine. Dean walks to it, no longer caring to silence his loud and thumping strides. It’s cold now. The freezing concrete seeps into the soles of his feet and pokes at them as he walks on. He regrets, no more than momentarily, only wearing boxers. 

The coffee machine is recognizable and easy. Dean forces his keycard into a slot that is not a slot and holds down the number 0. He turns to the parking lot as he waits for the machine to finish filling his free cup. A family of four has just exited a room on the first floor and is now hurriedly pushing overnight bags into a tiny car, mother and father far overdressed for a motel in the middle of Wisconsin; toddler dead asleep in mother’s arms and teenage girl squinting and stumbling in the cold fatigue of the morning. The mother catches sight of Dean as she fights the trunk of the car closed, and even from across the way on the 2nd floor balcony he can see the look of disgust on her face at his lack of clothing. Dean beams down at her, gives her a knowing salute. She glares, and, far too amused with himself, Dean grabs his coffee and makes his way back to his room. 

Stepping into the room was stepping into a different time. A different plane of existence entirely. It is warm. Residual body heat, Dean hypothesizes. He drinks his coffee standing, taking a large gulp, scalding his tongue. He is accustomed to the bitterness, and drinks for the heat not the taste. He doesn’t know why he craves more warmth. He presses his sandpaper tongue to the roof of his mouth, stares at the figure on the mattress, motionless except for the slow and steady rise and fall of its chest. Dean downs the rest of his coffee, too quickly, feels it sear down his throat.

He crawls back into bed the same way he left it, slowly, gingerly. Fully awake, he lays his head back onto the pillow and pulls the sheets up to his waist, cool from sweat. Cas does not wake up. Of course Dean knows he won’t, but still he is cautious of his movements.

He found Cas yesterday in the afternoon, having left Sam and the bunker worlds behind. He sat on a broken bench outside of a gas station at a highway oasis, turning a cell phone over and over between his fingers. He did not look up when Dean sat next to him, nor did he speak when Dean asked why he called for help. 

He smelled, Dean noticed. He reminded Cas that humans had to shower and Cas nodded that he knew, just that he was unable to find one. He informed Dean that he was also very tired, very hungry, and very in need of alcohol, but did not possess any form of credit or identification. Dean did not feel a tug on his well-worn heartstrings. He did not warn Cas of the horrible emotional coping strategies that emerge from alcoholism. No. Dean smiled. Cas was here, Cas was alive, Cas was speaking to him in the same, stupid deep voice. This was Cas. Cas, despite all was still Cas. He kept repeating over and over in his head. Cas is Cas is Castiel. He is here and he is fine and he is Cas.

They got a motel. They went out to eat. Dean purchased liquor. Dean bought bandages and disinfectant and a razor and some shaving cream. Dean smiled. Dean drank coffee. Dean began to notice. Small little things. Millisecond looks of desperate confusion and anger. Dean did not want to notice. Cas is Cas but he is not. No. Stop. Don’t think that.

Cas does not understand the normal levels of human alcohol consumption and Dean sits outside the motel bathroom and listens to him vomit. It is violent. He does not answer when Cas asks him how he is able to drink without vomiting. The corners of his lips twitch into a tiny smile when a tired voice calls “This is unpleasant.” between retches.

They fucked, human to human, for the first time that night. Or, they tried. Castiel had lost his grace in every sense of the word. The pads of his fingers pressed down into the back of Dean’s head too hard, pushing him down too far, making him gag. Cas came in about 45 seconds. Dean began to prepare for the second go round, explaining how to pace yourself. Cas, drunk and exhausted, can’t get it up again. He is frustrated. He explains in slurred speech that impotence has never plagued him before. His voice cracks like he’s about to cry. Dean says he’s not worried but feels a lump in his throat when he sidesteps into the bathroom and locks the door behind him. He jerks off and when he comes out, Cas has already fallen asleep.

A haze of orange slides up to the motel window and seeps inside, the pale glow falling upon Castiel’s face. He does not stir. Dean lays and watches, wants to touch. He worries the light will wake him. He resolves to get up and close the curtains but does not move.

Cas is ugly when he sleeps. His mouth is half open and his bottom lip, chapped and cracking, pokes out at a strange angle. There is a small spot of drool underneath his chin, where his beard has grown in uneven patches. His eyes are swollen shut from alcohol and crying. Dean’s eyes trace his face, but they find no constellations in the faint freckles here and there. They find no beauty or courage in the tiny traces of scars Jimmy Novak received as a child. There are cuts and scrapes on his shoulders and hands that Castiel has not quite gotten the hang of properly caring for. Dean does not see battle wounds, or the marks of a fallen warrior. He sees potential bacterial infection. He realizes the extent of Castiel’s ignorance of human kind. 

Nothing is beautiful or heavenly or poetic about the man lying in front of Dean Winchester. Anything heavenly had left him long ago. This thing, this new being, this creature of unfortunate circumstance. He is nothing but an infant. Not entirely ignorant, no, but enough so to be a danger to himself. And so Dean Winchester looked at Castiel in a way Castiel used to look at him. A well-worn soldier, too young to feel old and tired, a victim of the world and ungodly forces beyond his control. Burdened by sin and guilt and a trail of blood longer than his years. They are the same.

He presses a resolute kiss against the corner of the angel’s mouth, stubble pressing into his own. Castiel’s eyes flutter and greet the morning. Stiff. Boundless. He looks around the room, then to Dean. Dean waits for the words. They do not come.

He pushes himself into a sitting position and lets out a discontented sigh in the process. Rubs a tired hand over his face. Frowns.

“I do not feel well.” The words are forced out in jagged husks. Dean pretends not to notice.

“It’s a hangover.” Dean shifts. “You’ll get used to it.” Lies through gritted teeth. “You’ll get used to all of it.”

Castiel nods with such confident finality, as if the word of Dean is the ultimate gospel by which he will live his new life. Dean suddenly feels too big. His words take up too much space in the room and he needs to get out he needs to get out he needs to get out. He waits until Cas showers to hurriedly put on yesterday’s dirty clothes and shoulder his duffel. The strap cuts into his shoulder. He knocks on the bathroom door and over the dull humming of water hammering against white fiberglass tells Castiel to meet him at the car when he’s done.

The emptiness in the passenger seat is tangible and Dean finds himself turning more than once to consult with an absent Sam. When the space is finally filled by a rush of cool air, then Castiel, he feels his shoulders stiffen, something settle down upon them. Cas stares straight ahead with silent eyes.

“Hey.” Dean reaches out. Fingers between fingers. “It’s gonna be okay.” He nods. “Hmm? Everything’s gonna be fine. Humanity ain’t that bad.” Dean can think of nothing worse. He sees the words leave him, float to Castiel. “It’s going to be okay.” They are written now upon the angel’s forehead, solidified as a promise that Dean does not know he can keep. They drain the courage from his stomach, the color from his face. Still he repeats them. Sees the color return to the Castiel’s face. Drained from himself and given to another.

Castiel nods. “Thank you, Dean.”

Dean nods back. Grips his hand tightly for no one’s comfort but his own, disguised as someone else’s. He feels a steady pulse under his thumb, beating against his own, and is reassured. Minutes fall away.

“It’s…” the look Castiel gives him fills him with haunting familiarity. “…it’s going to be okay, Dean.”

Dean hears the words as truth, feels them deep within his chest, and then he understands. Hands squeeze tighter. Two unsure beings, bound not by similarity or circumstance but by something deeper. Both making promises built on sand. They drive into the stagnant and halcyon morning, settling into their seats, not listening to the music on the radio, fingers sewn together.

Dean sighs. Plays with the words in his brain and on top of his tongue. Feels their warmth seep into his limbs and extremities, slowly but permanently. He smiles.

It’s going to be okay.


End file.
